Crunchy caper

Published 8:00 pm, Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Daily News/DANIELLE RAPPAPORT

Lauren Reitz, an eighth grader at Northeast Middle School, points out the suspects to sixth-grade students visiting the "Who Dunnit" crime solving program at Northeast Middle School Tuesday afternoon. Eighth-grade students took other students around to different displays and taught them about the various tools used to solve crimes. The program was put on through the eighth-grade science classes.

Northeast Middle School sixth graders were on to Trix the Rabbits tricks Tuesday afternoon.

Analyzing tire tracks, footprints, handwriting, hair fibers and other evidence helped them sift through their list of suspects that included Tony the Tiger, Capn Crunch and other "cereal" criminals. They were trying to determine which of them stole items and recipes from cereal boxes.

The crime scenarios were designed by Northeast eighth graders and the project is funded by a Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation mini-grant that teacher Christine Brillhart sought and received.

"We just completed a unit on forensics and this is a lead in from that," said Beth Christiansen, an eighth grade teacher who worked with students on the project. "The kids came up with the crimes. They used all the information from the forensics unit and made it fit the cereal characters."

Eighth-grader Michael Biddle said the mock crimes are aimed at preschoolers who are led through the various observation areas. Groups of students were given evidence packets and learned about how to analyze the materials in them.